And I can see where you're coming from - I've been using Opera for over ten years now, so while other browsers are good, this one is the easiest for me =)

For occlusion in hairs you can take the Wildmane Hair as example when hair colors are bright. Not sure for Maseda but that could be the case

I've setup a simple render with 3 light setup + UE

The Hair has ubersurface applied with raytrace and occlusion unchecked in the first image. Render time 2m31

The second has a geometry shell with US shader and ambiant occlusion checked. Render time 2m

Without the geometry shell the render time goes up to more than 9min

Thanks for the examples! Yes, in this case it definitely looks the geometry shell AO is worth it. I hope to try it with Amarseda ASAP.

I'm still waiting patiently for Alessandro's LAMH plugin. There will be a new round of optimisation then =) I've downloaded the manual preview he posted, and he recommends insane (tm) render settings, too. Yet, I don't think they should be that higher than the ones I used for Cath's fiber hair...

I'm still waiting patiently for Alessandro's LAMH plugin. There will be a new round of optimisation then =) I've downloaded the manual preview he posted, and he recommends insane (tm) render settings, too. Yet, I don't think they should be that higher than the ones I used for Cath's fiber hair...

It's true, the settings I recommended were indeed insane. ReDave emailed me some weeks ago telling me the same, and proposing a different render setup. As I had some time I did some test renders and he was right.

The following settings were actually the most suitable and there is no reason to crank them up as I suggested in the initial manual revision:

Seeing material zones used to be important, too, but now that it's easy as peanuts to add new matzones in DS4, I'm not that obsessive.

I still wish folks would include the matzone promo shot. Yes, you can add your own with the PGE, but it takes time and can be rather tedious. Also, depending on the mesh, you may not be able to get a clean hem/trim/etc line because the polygons faces weren't laid out for it. I do all my rendering with Reality/LuxRender, so having separate mat zones is much more important to take advantage of Lux's native material types. Sadly, I find most stuff doesn't have all the material zones it should have... Especially from the 'mass production' vendors over at Rendo.

Seeing material zones used to be important, too, but now that it's easy as peanuts to add new matzones in DS4, I'm not that obsessive.

I still wish folks would include the matzone promo shot. Yes, you can add your own with the PGE, but it takes time and can be rather tedious. Also, depending on the mesh, you may not be able to get a clean hem/trim/etc line because the polygons faces weren't laid out for it. I do all my rendering with Reality/LuxRender, so having separate mat zones is much more important to take advantage of Lux's native material types. Sadly, I find most stuff doesn't have all the material zones it should have... Especially from the 'mass production' vendors over at Rendo.

Half of buyers at Rendo won't even look at more than the first promo. I got indignant emails when Genesis first came out from Poser users who clicked BUY without looking at the very first line of the product description to see that an item would only work in DS4. Additionally, if an item functionally has a jillion mat zones as an outfit (like my own Heavy Armor does) it takes a LONG time to do a mat zone promo. I'm not saying they're not useful, just that I can see why a lot of vendors don't do them.